1976 Kansas City Royals: A Division Dynasty Takes Root

The Kansas City Royals had enjoyed a reasonably successful existence for an expansion franchise. Born in 1969, in an era when new teams weren’t given anywhere nearly the helping hand at getting started they are today, the Royals were playing winning baseball by 1971. That put them on a four-year roller-coaster, where they had winning seasons in the odd-numbered years and losing seasons in the even-numbered ones.

Based on that, a Kansas City fan could be forgiven for getting nervous coming into 1976. But these ’76 Royals not only broke that pattern, they broke through, earning the franchise’s first ticket to the postseason and ushering in a decade of success.

THE HURDLE IN OAKLAND

It was during the middle of the 1975 season that Kansas City tapped a young Whitey Herzog to be the manager. The young Royals responded to Whitey by finishing the season on a 41-25 tear. In an era when you had to finish in first place to make the postseason, it wasn’t enough, but it set the tone coming into this year—that the Oakland A’s needed to be on watch.

Oakland was the dominant team in the AL West, and indeed in all of baseball in the first half of the 1970s. They had won five straight division titles and the middle three seasons of that run, from 1972 through 1974, ended with a World Series title. With the existence of a Central Division still nearly twenty years in the future, Kansas City was slotted in the AL West and needed to dethrone Oakland if they were going to reach October.

WHITEYBALL ARRIVES

Herzog would become legendary in St. Louis in the 1980s for the frequency with which his teams stole bases. It was a style that became evident in Kansas City. The ’76 Royals only had two players who hit more than 10 home runs—John Mayberry at first base and Amos Otis in centerfield. But seven players stole 20 or more bases, led by shortstop Freddie Patek who swiped 51.

The team was also young, with Patek the only starter in the everyday lineup over the age of 30. And no starter was younger than the brightest star.

Third base was occupied by 23-year-old George Brett, starting a career that would mark him the franchise’s greatest player—indeed one of the great third baseman and pure hitters to ever play.

Brett hit .333, and designated hitter Hal McRae hit .332 to key the offense. Mayberry led the team with 95 RBIs, and Otis was a complete offensive and defensive player. The Royals finished fourth in the American League in runs scored.

Herzog’s pitching was even better. The staff finished second in the AL in ERA, led by Dennis Leonard, who won 17 games with a 3.51 ERA and logged 259 innings to lead the rotation. The pitchers were as young as the hitters, with only Al Fitzmorris as old as 30, and Fitzmorris won 15 games with a 3.06 ERA. Doug Bird and Paul Splittorff rounded out the staff, combining for 23 wins and each having ERAs under 4.00.

The bullpen was deep, with Mark Litell, Marty Pattin and Steve Migori piling up the innings in the days when roles weren’t as strictly defined as they are today, and all three having sub-3.00 ERAs. Kansas City was well-balanced, young, and hungry.

PUTTING OAKLAND IN THE CROSSHAIRS

After a 5-7 start, the Royals found their sea legs and ripped off 13 wins in 16 games, including series wins over fellow AL West challengers in the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers. On May 18, the team K.C. really had to beat came to town. Oakland arrived for a two-game set.

Splittorff took the ball for the Wednesday night opener and combined with Marty Pattin to keep the A’s in check. The Royals’ own bats struck quickly, with four hits and a walk producing three first-inning runs. Mayberry had a three-hit night, and Kansas City won 5-2.

The following night, the Royals were in a 4-2 hole in the seventh inning. Patek’s triple got a rally started. Brett later tripled in the go-ahead run. Otis had four hits on the evening, and Mayberry drove in four runs. Kansas City won 8-4 and completed a two-game sweep.

When the season hit the Memorial Day turn, the Royals were 25-16 and atop the AL West. The Rangers were a game back, with the Twins and Chicago White Sox four off the pace. And the mighty A’s were slow out of the gate, seven games in the rearview mirror.

A STATEMENT IN THE BRONX

Kansas City came out of the holiday weekend and went west for the rematch with Oakland and took two of three on the road for good measure. The Royals rolled through June with a 19-10 record. The A’s came back to the Midwest over the Fourth of July for four games that ended up in a split. Kansas City was still comfortably in control of the division when they traveled to the Bronx on July 5.

The New York Yankees had taken early control of the AL East, and even if no one could afford to get ahead of themselves, this was shaping up as a possible preview of the American League Championship Series. It was another chance for the rising Royals to test themselves against the league’s upper crust.

Splittorff started an afternoon game on what was a holiday Monday and pitched brilliantly into the seventh inning, nursing a 2-1 lead. It got a little hairy in the ninth, but Mingori pitched around a bases-loaded/one-out jam to close the win.

Tuesday was a twi-night doubleheader, an old-school concept where the first game began in the early evening and there was just a twenty-minute break between games. Brett and Mayberry had two hits apiece in the opener, Bird pitched seven strong innings and Mingori cleaned up the eighth and ninth without incident. K.C. won 3-1. Even though they dropped the nightcap, the Royals had already assured themselves of a series split

And on Wednesday night, they used some terrific pitching to do even better. Andy Hassler went toe-to-toe with the great Yankee ace Catfish Hunter. A McRae homer had led us to a 1-1 tie in the ninth. That’s when Frank White singled, stole second, took third on a throwing error and scored on a sac fly by Otis. Kansas City had taken three of four and they steamrolled into the All-Star Break with a 51-31 record, up seven games on Texas and 8 ½ games on Oakland.

SURGES AND SLUMPS

A strange six-game series with the Boston Red Sox started the second half, as the Royals and Red Sox played a pair of doubleheaders across a Thursday-to-Sunday schedule. Kansas City won five times. Their lead ballooned to 10 ½ games.

The Royals were in that “too hot not to cool down” phase of a baseball season, and they went on to lose seven of 12, including a series at Oakland. K.C. stayed sluggish through August. While they swept the Twins and took three of five from the White Sox, they also lost a series at home with New York and dumped three of four games in Texas. But with a 17-14 record for the month overall, the Royals still had a comfortable seven-game lead on the A’s by Labor Day, with the Rangers falling off the pace.

THE RACE TIGHTENS

Proud veterans don’t roll over easily and Oakland didn’t. As Kansas City continued to play so-so baseball in the early part of September, the A’s cut the lead down to 4 ½ games. There was still a three-game series between the two rivals in Oakland in the final week, so this was far from a done deal.

Kansas City responded by hosting Chicago and winning three straight one-run games, pushing the lead back out to six. Oakland pushed back, again knocking the lead down to 4 ½ games. As we entered the final week, the Royals still had control of the race, but they needed to get one win in Oakland to clinch and avoid a hair-raising last weekend.

SURVING THE CHAMPS

Monday and Tuesday night in Oakland raised the blood pressures of everyone in Kansas City. Leonard got pounded in the opener and lost 8-3. The bats fell silent in the second game, losing 1-0. By the time we got to Wednesday afternoon’s getaway game, the lead was 2 ½ games and still sitting on two.

Larry Gura, a finesse pitching lefty, was on the mound. He had made just 19 appearances in 1976. But Gura would, over the next several years, become one of the more reliable pitchers in the American League. And it was that version of Gura that went on display in this game. He pitched a complete game, allowed just four singles, and held a 4-0 lead in the ninth. When he induced a popup to Mayberry for the final out, the champagne could at last flow in Kansas City.

ALCS HEARTBREAK BUT A NEW ERA HAS BEGUN

The Royals indeed met the Yankees in the postseason. It proved to be a classic battle, but one that ended in heartbreak for Kansas City, as they lost the decisive game of what was then a best-of-five series on a walkoff home run in the ninth inning.

READ THE GAME-BY-GAME NARRATIVE OF THE 1976 ALCS

Heartbreaking ending or not, 1976 was the start of what proved to be “A Royal Decade”, a ten-year stretch where Kansas City won the AL West six times, took two American League pennants and culminated the run with a World Series championship in 1985.